Blame The VCR
by the49thname
Summary: On a television screen was a film from some age long since passed where people still filmed in black and white, and Badou had long since stopped caring. The thing he did care about was the fact that Heine was in his apartment, lying on his couch, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. The weird thing was it had become normal.


**Pairing:** Heine/Badou  
 **Warnings:** Rating may go up as the fic progresses  
 **Author's note:** I re-read all of DOGS recently and fell back in love with it, and this came as a result of that. This won't be particularly plot heavy but it will be canon compliant, for the most part. Let me know what you think!

* * *

Badou wondered, as he did every Sunday, exactly how he got himself into this mess.

He got into a lot of messes. His lifestyle choice was as much to blame as the city he lived in, and there wasn't a lot he could do about either of those things. He wasn't bad at his job - though certain people would disagree with him on that - and he tried his best to avoid conflict when he could, but it never seemed to do him much good.

Mimi once told him she thought he was unlucky, and he didn't disagree with her, not necessarily. He just wasn't the self-pitying type. Sure, he got into a lot of shit. Sure, it happened nearly every day. But as long as he could come home with a wad of cash, a full pack of cigarettes, and time to sleep before it started all over again, he could deal with it.

This current mess, however, was trying his patience.

The 'mess' in question was a man around his age, with pale hair and pale skin - more ghost than human, though being a ghost would imply he'd been human _once_ \- who was lying on a couch across from him , watching a television screen placed a few feet away. On that television screen was a film from some age long since passed where people still filmed in black and white, and two people were talking; _just_ talking. This entire film had been nothing but talking in various rooms for what felt like an eternity and Badou had long since stopped caring. The thing he _did_ care about was the fact that Heine was in his apartment, lying on his couch, as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

The weird thing was it _had_ become normal.

Maybe normal was the wrong word. Badou was used to it. No, that didn't work either. He could _tolerate_ the fact that every week on a Sunday, Heine turned up and spent most of the day watching films with him. This week it was _Dinner at Eight_ , and Badou had never been more bored in his entire life. Okay, that wasn't entirely true, he could be watching paint dry, but it would be less awkward watching paint dry and there was a mild - very mild - appeal to that right now.

Normally on a Sunday, Badou would be sleeping. If he wasn't sleeping, he'd be smoking. Maybe he'd go out for a quick visit to Buon Viaggio, chat to Kiri for a bit, bump into Mimi and inevitably be dragged into yet another bad, under-paying job. Spending his Sunday with Heine, of all people, was _weird_.

They'd known each other for four years. In that time, Badou had mostly only ever seen him on a job, and even then most of the time Heine left him behind, making some snide comment about how he didn't need 'extra baggage'. To be honest, if getting left behind meant he missed out on Heine ripping people apart, he didn't mind so much. When they weren't on a job, he occasionally bumped into him when he caught up with Bishop at the church, but at most Badou would attempt a conversation and be met with a disinterested grunt in reply.

Heine had gotten a little friendlier over time, though 'friendly' was too strong a word for someone like him; he _tolerated_ Badou more than he used to. Heine trusted Badou to do his job, and Badou trusted Heine to do his. Sometimes, if Heine got too caught up in obliterating people to help Badou out of a bad situation, he'd treat him at Buon Viaggio and call it even. It wasn't exactly even when Badou was nursing multiple injuries, but it was better than being left for dead, he supposed.

Despite all of that, here he was, spending his precious free time with someone he associated more with gunfire and spitting out blood than watching cheesy romcoms from the 50s.

It was more force of habit at this point than an active decision on both their parts. It started out with Badou dragging an unconscious Heine back to his apartment, one Sunday nearly two months beforehand, wondering how on Earth he'd explain the blood stains and coughed up bullets to his landlord. Telling someone that the seemingly dead person bleeding out on his floorboards was not, in fact, dead - and was soon going to be right as rain because of freaky immortality bullshit - was harder than justifying a corpse. Luckily, Badou didn't have to deal with explaining Heine to anyone, so he waited for Heine to get up like he usually did, expecting him to be tired and pissed off that Badou hadn't left him where he was.

He waited, and waited. After an hour, Badou felt confused. Normally Heine would be up and about by now, but he was still lying face-down on Badou's floor, unmoving. After two hours, Badou was downright _anxious_. This wasn't how things normally went, and he had no idea what to do. Bishop was away, Nill was staying with Granny Liza, and as far as Badou knew they were the only people who could even remotely help him with Heine.

He would have to deal with this himself, somehow, which made him angry by the time the third hour came about. Having lost all patience, Badou tried to wake Heine up. He kicked him, pulled on his hair - it was surprisingly soft - yelled his name, made snide comments about his fashion sense; nothing. After four hours, Badou resigned himself to Heine lying immobile on his floor and picked a distraction. The film he'd rented out three weeks beforehand and forgotten to trade for something else - meaning he'd re-watched it dozens of times out of sheer laziness - would do. He settled himself down on a couch, a lit cigarette between his fingers, and focused on anything other than Heine.

Four hours after that, Badou woke up with a jolt at the sound of laughter. He took a moment to orientate himself - head lolling against the side of the couch, a burnt out cigarette drooping between his splayed fingers - before he realised the film he'd put on was still playing. Heine was sat on the other couch as if nothing had happened, watching the television with casual disinterest. Eventually, he realised Badou was staring at him, and turned to give him a pointed look.

"You really watch this shit?"

Badou blinked, struggling to process what was going on. "I thought you were dead."

Heine raised an eyebrow. "Did you forget I can't die? Idiot."

"In my defence, you weren't moving."

"I was asleep. Getting shot full of bullets is tiring." Heine paused before narrowing his eyes. "Why did you take me to your apartment? You know where the church is."

Badou sighed, dropping his long since dead cigarette into an ashtray before lighting another one. "Yeah, 'cause an empty church sure would help you. I couldn't exactly leave you there, so you can stick your ungrateful attitude up your ass."

Heine bristled. "I woke up caked in blood with five bullets to cough up. You could've done a better job, asshole."

Badou gave him the finger, took a long drag of his cigarette, and exhaled out smoke with a content expression. Heine scowled over at him.

"Do you have to smoke?"

"My apartment, my rules, Heine. Now, either you get out and give me some peace and quiet, or you shut up."

Heine did in fact shut up, much to Badou's surprise. Normally he would give some muttered comment under his breath and leave, even if he was in no state to walk. Instead, Heine settled back and went back to watching the television again. Badou raised an eyebrow.

"I thought you said this film was shit."

Heine shrugged in reply, leaving Badou confused and somewhat annoyed. All he really wanted to do was go back to sleep. He considered forcing Heine to leave, but it was too much effort, and if Heine did nothing more than sit and watch TV then Badou couldn't really complain.

And that's how it started.

* * *

The next Sunday, the two of them were given another job. This time, it was Badou who was left unconscious - thankfully not full of bullets - after someone bashed his head in with a brick. He woke up to the familiar smell of his apartment - stale smoke and unwashed clothes, the true _essence de Badou_ \- with a sodden blood-covered jacket under his head and Heine sat on the couch beside him, watching the same film from the week before.

Badou grimaced, not even attempting to raise himself up, trying to look for a cigarette without turning his head and failing. _Ouch_. He groaned, waving a hand in Heine's general direction.

"Cigs."

Heine looked over at him, apathetic. "What?"

Badou scowled, already losing his patience. He likely had a concussion and he was not in the mood for Heine being difficult.

"Cigarettes. Hand 'em over."

"You get them. They're your cigarettes."

Badou groaned. "Yeah and you're not concussed, so get 'em before I find a way to beat the shit out of you."

Heine gave a short, sharp laugh. "I'd like to see you try."

He complied nonetheless, throwing a pack at Badou none too lightly, but Badou couldn't care less the moment he had the cigarette between his lips. He blew out a cloud of smoke, giving a satisfied smile, before reality kicked in.

"Wait, how did you get into my apartment?"

"I used your keys."

Heine said it so matter-of-factly that Badou almost accepted that answer. _Almost_.

"How did you know where my keys were?"

Heine was annoyed now, throwing a glare Badou's way. "Listen, asshole. You were passed out on some mafia boss's carpet and I took you home when I could've left you there. Now we're even."

Badou resisted the urge to argue, realising that Heine not even a year ago would probably have left him for dead. He sighed, closing his eye against the glaring light of the television and tried to get comfortable.

"Make sure to wake me up in an hour."

"Why?"

"So I don't go into a coma, idiot."

Heine laughed. "Right, yeah, as if I care about that."

Badou mumbled an insult before passing out, and when he woke up an hour later to Heine's foot in his stomach - his bruised, very unhappy stomach - he nearly punched him before he remembered and settled down again.

Hours later, after several re-runs of the same film and several kicks to Badou's stomach to get him to wake up, Heine gave a frustrated noise and stood up, making his way to the door. Badou, semi-conscious, called out to him from his spot on the couch.

"You're off?"

Heine didn't reply for so long that Badou assumed he'd left, but eventually Heine gave a reply, sounding tired.

"If I watch that film one more fucking time, I'm gonna go insane."

Badou grinned. "Aren't you already insane?"

"Shut it. I'm going home to sleep, and next time I'm bringing shit to watch that isn't gonna make me want to rip out my eyeballs."

"They'd just grow back, it'd be pointless."

Heine didn't hear him, already halfway down the hall, and Badou didn't pick up on Heine mentioning a 'next time' until a lot later.

And that's how the pattern went, every single Sunday like clockwork.

Heine would turn up at Badou's apartment, usually after a job, but occasionally for no other reason than 'habit', bringing along something from the rental store. Either that or Badou would rent something in advance, if not just to watch something even remotely interesting; Heine's taste in films was _questionable_. The two of them would order shitty take-out and watch the television in relative silence. 'Relative' meaning Badou talked about as much as he usually did, and Heine was about as talkative as a dead cat.

It was a strange pattern to have fallen into. Badou was used to some element of regularity. He worked part-time at a shop. He usually went to the same places on the same days at the same times. But he lived alone, and company in his apartment was unheard of. Heine, on the other hand, didn't seem used to any kind of routine at all. He came and went as he pleased, like the stray dog that he was, and it was strange to see him coming to Badou's apartment, time and time again, as if it was normal.

It _was_ normal, he supposed; as normal as it could ever be for people like them.

It wasn't that Badou disliked Heine, or even disliked the company. It was just _weird_. Heine had only been this tolerant of Nill, at least to Badou's knowledge, and that likely meant Badou had somehow become Heine's friend… somehow. It seemed like more trouble than it was worth, since Heine more often than not attracted a crowd of bad people in the same manner that rotten meat attracted flies.

Badou didn't really know anything about Heine, beyond his bad taste in films and his talent for ripping people's limbs off. He knew Heine never went anywhere without bandages around his neck, and he was scared of women - Nill being an exception - but that was as far as Badou's knowledge of him went. He could ask him about it, or use his skills and dig up whatever he could find, but ultimately it didn't really matter.

As long as Heine was tolerable, Badou couldn't care less.

And that brought him back to sitting and watching the black-and-white film on his television, with Heine on the other couch, watching with apparent concentration. Badou was _bored_.

"Why do you watch this shit?"

Heine turned his head. "What?"

"Why do you watch shit like this? They've just been talking for hours now."

Heine snorted. "It's not even been on for an hour yet, idiot. They've not just been talking either."

Badou scowled, tone full of sarcasm. "Oh yeah, I forgot, they briefly ate dinner, how interesting."

"It's called _Dinner at Eight_ , what were you expecting?"

"I don't know, not this! You really don't make sense to me sometimes."

Heine turned towards Badou fully with a frown. "What's your problem?"

Badou sighed, propping himself up with an arm and gesturing with his free hand. "You're all, ya know, spitting blood at people and disembowelling them with your fingers. And you like stuff like _this_?"

Heine bristled, irritated by the comment, before shrugging. "It's better than your shitty crime films."

Now it was Badou's turn to get defensive. "Hey, my taste in films is _excellent_."

Heine gave a derisive laugh. "Yeah, 'cause watching guys smoke for three hours while they fail to catch an obvious bad guy is real fun to watch."

"But there's an actual plot! There's action and romance and it's more interesting than whatever this shit is!" Badou gestured at the television with his hand, face pulled into a grimace. "Why _do_ you like stuff like this anyhow?"

Heine shrugged. "I dunno, it's interesting enough."

"That's not an answer, Heine."

"Yes it is."

Badou groaned. "Why are you always like this? I was just asking!"

"Yeah, well you asking is irritating, so shut up."

A somewhat tense silence descended upon the two of them, broken only by the sound of the television across from them, before Badou couldn't help but speak.

"I have one more question."

Heine sighed, running a hand through his hair. "You're so goddamn annoying sometimes. What is it?"

"Why do you come here every week?"

Silence, immediate and _painfully_ awkward; Badou almost wished he hadn't asked. Almost. After what felt like an unbearable few minutes, Heine settled back against the armrest behind him and shrugged.

"Beats being stuck at home."

Badou raised an eyebrow. "What, your place infested with rats or something?"

Heine scowled, considered retorting, before making a disgusted noise and shaking his head. "I can't be bothered to deal with this shit. You want me to leave? Fine."

He pushed himself up, putting on his jacket and taking his share of that day's pay with him. Badou turned and looked up at him, feeling altogether unhappy with this development, though he wasn't quite sure why. Maybe it was the break in routine… or something. Badou watched Heine unlock his door and leave it open as he walked out, and after hesitating for a moment he raised himself up and ran to the door, yelling down the hallway.

"Next time, we're watching _The Cotton Club_ and there's nothing you can do about it!"

From the end of the hall, Heine laughed and flipped him off before disappearing from sight.

Normal. Yeah, this was normal.


End file.
